1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a weather strip to be installed along an opening of an automobile body for a door thereof.
2. Description of the Prior Art
In an automobile as shown in FIG. 1, the gap between an opening 1 for a door 2 and the door 2 is sealed by a weather strip.
FIGS. 12 and 13 illustrate one example of a conventional weather strip of the above described type.
A weather strip 3 is composed of an extruded body made of sponge rubber, which has a base portion 31 and a hollow sealing portion 32.
In corner portions A, and joint portions B wherein a roof side portion of an automobile body is jointed to a lower half portion thereof, which is to be in contact with a door body, as shown in FIG. 1, are installed weather strips, each being composed of extruded weather strips 3A and 3B which are jointed by molding.
A molded portion 4 is formed by setting ends of a pair of extruded weather strips 3A and 38 within a cavity of a mold so as to be opposed to each other, setting a molding portion 61 of a core 6, havig a sectional shape as shown in FIG. 14, between both ends of the weather strips 3A and 3B for obtaining a hollow molded portion 4. and pouring a rubber material around the forming portion 61. In FIGS. 12 and 13, a reference numeral 5 denotes a slit which remains hollow after the core 6 is removed in the step following the molding step.
Another example of the conventional weather strip of the above described type has a U-shaped sectioned base portion made of solid rubber and a hollow sealing portion made of sponge rubber provided along the side surface of the base portion. For forming curved portions of this weather strip, which extend along corner portions of an opening for a door, only the hollow sealing portions to be formed into the curved portions are cut away, the remaining base portions are made curved, the obtained curved base portions are set within a cavity of a mold, cores are set within the cavity and a rubber material is poured into the cavity whereby the hollow sealing portion is molded.
In the weather strip installed in an opening for a door, the hollow sealing portion is pressed by a peripheral edge of the door when the door is closed. For example, in the case of a weather strip 3 shown in FIG. 12, pressing load is applied in a direction shown by an arrow F. Accordingly, the slit 5 is opened as shown by a dotted line in FIG. 13 and the weather strip S is fallen down in its base portion. This results in sufficient sealing force being not obtained.
For overcoming the above described problem, such a measure of coating opposed surfaces defining the slit 5 with an adhesive and bonding the coated opposed surfaces to each other to close the slit 5, has been adopted. However, this measure comes short of work efficiency since the bonding work is troublesome.